The Journey (1998)
8 tracks, 53 minutes
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For a long time, Maryam Mursal’s The Journey was the only album of Somali music to make any real impression on the so-called ‘world music’ scene. Released on Real World Records, produced by Simon Emmerson and Martin Russell of Afro Celt Sound System, and featuring guest stars such as Peter Gabriel, it’s obvious that this album was an attempt at exploding Mursal as the next big thing in world music, similar to the ways that releases by Baaba Maal and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, with their similar collaborative productions, had worked in the past.
Unfortunately, it didn’t really turn out that way. This was the only album that Mursal made for Real World – although she had also contributed to the album of more traditionally Somali music by Waaberi, New Dawn, the previous year – and in fact, I can’t find that she’s recorded any albums since. Looking back now, the album hasn’t aged well. Whereas other similar productions built upon the traditional styles, taking them in different directions and creating something new from the cultural collisions at play, all of the funky, dubby, world-spanning sounds on The Journey take away from the original styles more than they add to them and in a way that sounds particularly dated from two decades in the future.
The album is redeemed, however, through the sheer power of Mursal’s performance. Even despite the clunkiest and most distracting of the production elements, her low-pitched and throaty voice shines through, drawing the attention with her cool delivery. The vocals feel ever so slightly detached from the rest of the instrumentation as if lagging behind minutely in a relaxed, easy-going way, which lends a really nice and laid-back swing to it all. And then, at times, Mursal’s vocals and the production do come together as one and create a really great track, such as ‘Somali Udiida Ceb’.
I wanted to include this as a Good Album more because of what it meant than how it actually turned out. This album was a well-respected world music record label giving a seal of confidence in Somali music as a modern musical form and with international appeal for the first time. The way they went about it wasn’t ideal, but it wasn’t until K’naan’s 2005 album Dusty Foot Philosopher that Somali music gained any further international presence. In the last few years, with the re-discovery of the Dur-Dur Band back catalogue and the crate-digging of Ostinato Records (which resulted in Sweet As Broken Dates: Lost Somali Tapes from the Horn of Africa) and Analog Africa (Mogadisco – Dancing Mogadishu (Somalia 1972-1991), which comes out in December), Somali music has really taken off as a world music genre, as people realise how exciting these melodies and rhythms can be.
Before this album came out, Maryam Mursal was already respected as a singer among Somali people around the world; The Journey solidified her as a star, the first Somali singer to cross over to audiences outside East Africa. Nowadays she sings in public less often (she runs a fabric shop in Southall), but whenever she does she’s hailed as a real grandmother of modern Somali music. This album represents a milestone – its cultural significance outstripping its success as a musical artefact. And sometimes that’s just as important in determining what is or isn’t a Good Album.
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